Didier

On Tuesday 18 October 2022 a Ministerial Meeting was organised to discuss the progress of the School Meals coalition so far and establish ways to move forward as it enters its second year. The Research Consortium published the Stockholm Statement which informed the ministers of the School Meals Coalition, covering the lessons learned from the pandemic to date, insights gained on the design and benefits of school health and nutrition programmes, examples of best practice in national school meals programming, and how these insights can be translated into policy.

The School Meals Coalition is an emerging initiative of governments and a wide range of partners to drive actions that can urgently re-establish, improve and scale up food and education systems, support pandemic recovery and drive actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) hosted an interdisciplinary summit on 12-14 October 2022, focusing on health issues in children and adolescence in the post-COVID era.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have a long-lasting and negative impact on children’s development and health. Weight gain, increased screen time, less physical activity, and decreased social interactions have all contributed to unhealthier lives. Moreover, the pandemic has accelerated and exacerbated many of the pre-existing racial and socioeconomic health disparities.

Health promotion interventions for children and adolescents have the potential to influence health and well-being sustainably in the life-course. The 2nd Interdisciplinary Summit “Future of Health – Child Health and Wellbeing” addressed these challenges and focused on the fundamental changes that are imperative for sustainable child and adolescent health.

This conference was built on the UNICEF report: “Preventing a Lost Decade – Urgent action to reverse the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children and young people“.

Didier Jourdan spoke on the theme: “Preventing a lost decade: supporting every community to become a foundation for healthy lives”.

More information

TeEACH (Transforming Early Education and Child Health Research Centre ) is organising an interactive symposium: “Children and their Families Need Social Connection to Thrive” on Wednesday 2 November 2022 from 9.00 – 16.00 AEDT, 23.00 (1 Nov) – 6.00 (2 Nov) CET.

Social (dis)connection is a critical social policy issue, with one in three Australians reporting that they feel extended periods of loneliness. We know from a broad body of research that children are healthier, happier, and learn better when surrounded by community and feel a sense of place, identity and belonging. It has never been more critical to re-energise the notion that it takes a village to raise healthy children.

Community connectedness is the glue that can reintegrate a disparate service system while supporting sustained, meaningful change long after programs end. Researchers at TeEACH are interested in understanding the strengths, resilience, and resources present within every community.

This interactive symposium brings together the voices of children, families, policymakers, service providers, volunteers and researchers to explore new ways of thinking about community connectedness and how to champion it for children and their families.

Register to attend

UNESCO/Global Campus of Human Rights Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Science and Human Rights is out and open for enrolment. The course, which is the first ever educational content on this topic, will be running from 10 October to 13 November 2022. Registration is free and open until 23 October.

Why a MOOC on Science and Human Rights?

Scientific freedom and responsibility have to be enabled and practiced. They benefit both scientists and policymakers; they also benefit all of us. Yet, these benefits will not be achieved if the status of scientific freedom and responsibility as a human right, as well as their linkages with other human rights, are not well understood or are plainly neglected. At present, we have a human rights knowledge-gap that needs to be closed if science is to be objective, evidence-based, free from undue interference and accessible. Closing this gap will enable scientific researchers to claim and exercise their rights relating to the conduct of science and policymakers to meet their human rights obligations and create a healthy environment for rights-driven science, which is a cornerstone for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This MOOC, offered in partnership with UNESCO, is the first dedicated educational engagement on the human rights-based approach (HRBA) to scientific freedom and responsibility, which is also accessible, at scale and cross-disciplinary in its engagement with human rights.

What does the programme look like?

The MOOC runs over 5 weeks and is organised in 2 modules.

Module 1 explains connections and frameworks and tackles two important questions:

• Why connect science and human rights?
• What is a human rights-based approach to scientific freedom and responsibility?

Module 2 is devoted to the HRBA in practice and responds to 3 key questions:

• What is science for human rights?
• What is an enabling environment for scientific freedom?
• How can you use a HRBA to science to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals?

Interested in joining?

This MOOC is mainly for scientists, university-level science students and policymakers around the world who want to understand and practise a HRBA to scientific freedom and scientific responsibility.

Promoting diverse participation, including in terms of gender, is a key consideration.

For more information and to enroll, visit www.gchumanrights.org/shr

For further queries, e-learning@gchumanrights.org

Watch the special teaser: MOOC Science and Human Rights – YouTube

The Department of Health Systems and Services of the Pan American Health Organization(PAHO) is organizing the 3^rd webinar in a series called “Policy Options for Strengthening and Transforming Health Systems in the Americas” on 11 October 2022 at 10:00 (EDT) / 16:00 (CET). The aim of the webinar series is to bring together key actors representing all sectors of the health field and facilitating the exchange of experiences, tools and lessons learned that are emerging in the Region for the transformation of health systems.

The topic of the 3^rd webinar is: “As health reform impacts on barriers to access, are our health systems ready to move towards resilience and universal access?”. How to recover the gains made in the region and ensure the resilience of health systems in this context? Register to learn about different country experiences in the region in analysing and addressing access barriers as a starting point for the development of resilient health systems.

You can register for this webinar here.

The webinar will be offered with simultaneous translation in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.

This webinar series is part of the “Strategy for Building Resilient Health Systems and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery to Sustain and Protect Public Health Gains”, adopted by the PAHO Member States in 2021, which entrusted the Organization with the task to provide technical cooperation to Member States to strengthen capacities and promote regional cooperation and dialogue and the sharing of knowledge and experiences.

More information

Registration

The UN Transforming Education Summit was being convened in response to a global crisis in education – one of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. Often slow and unseen, this crisis is having a devastating impact on the futures of children and youth worldwide. The Summit deals with a crisis in education that has seen some 147 million students missing over half of their in-person instruction, since 2020. In 2021, 244 million children and young people were out of school. The pandemic has harmed the learning of more than 90% of the world’s children – the largest disruption in history – with half of all countries cutting their education budgets, further deepening the crisis.

The Summit provides a unique opportunity to elevate education to the top of the global political agenda and to mobilize action, ambition, solidarity and solutions to recover pandemic-related learning losses and sow the seeds to transform education in a rapidly changing world.

One of its outcomes is the Youth Declaration. The Youth Declaration is presented as young people’s inputs to the Transforming Education Summit Chair Summary/Secretary-General’s Vision Statement. Its aim is to drive political commitment on the need to transform education and build young people’s ownership over this process.

World Mental Health Day is observed annually on 10 October. Since 1992, the global community unites on this day to raise awareness and reduce the stigma that surrounds people with mental health problems. This year’s theme for World Mental Health Day is ‘Make mental health & wellbeing a global priority for all’.  

In line with this year’s theme, Mental Health Europe (MHE) will host a hybrid event at the European Parliament ‘World Mental Health Day: Migrants, Refugees and Mental Health’ on the 10th of October (14:00 – 15:30) focusing on refugees, migration and mental health. This event will be co-hosted by MEP Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA) and MEP Estrella Durá Ferrandis (S&D). The event will bring together key actors to discuss the importance of good mental health and how best to provide adequate mental health support in the context of increased migration across Europe.

You have the option of joining the event in person or tuning in online.   

• Joining online: Click here to register online  
• Joining in-person:  Click here to register to join in-person (please note that spaces are limited)  

9 September 2022 – New UNESCO data shows that 244 million children and youth between 6 and 18 years old worldwide are still out of school. Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, calls for collective mobilization to ensure that the right of every child to access quality education is respected.

The new estimates, published online, show that sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the most children and youth out of school, with a total of 98 million children. It is also the only region where this number is increasing. The region with the second highest out-of-school population is Central and Southern Asia, with 85 million. The data per country is available in interactive visualizations on the VIEW website. The objective of quality education for all by 2030, set by the United Nations, risks not being achieved.

The new UNESCO estimates confirm that the difference in the rate of girls and boys out of school has closed worldwide.

Today, September 19, the Transforming Education Summit will be held convened by the UN Secretary General, which will bring together Heads of State and Governments.

Read the UNESCO press release.

On October 5th-7th, 2022 the 22nd International Association for Adolescent Health (IAAH) European Regional Conference will be held in Athens, Greece. It is locally organized by the Greek/Hellenic Society for Adolescent Medicine (GSAM) and mainly focuses on youth development during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The final programme is now available.

Theme

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth physical and mental health, education, development and overall well-being may raise dilemmas in the management and the control of immediate or long-term consequences. Action through multidisciplinary approaches is required and knowledge of physical and psychosocial aspects, as well as possible aetiological factors, burden of co-morbidities, prevention and treatment options, as well as counselling and support strategies are prerequisites for every effort of controlling the situation and will constitute the main core of the scientific programme. Formal and non-formal education, youth-friendly services and safe digital spaces that help young people make healthier choices and develop healthy relationships, are also a topic of great interest in this conference.

An update on other important Adolescent Medicine topics, such as nutrition, vaccination, skin conditions, contraception, sports medicine, etc. will be presented.

Participants

Medical doctors of different specialties, other health professionals and specialists e.g., psychologists, social workers, educators, dieticians, physical fitness experts, etc. are welcome to participate and contribute to the works of the IAAH conference by exchanging experience and expertise, as well as difficulties encountered in different countries.

Format

Interactive workshops, symposia, round tables will take place and experts will present key topics in plenary sessions. Oral and poster presentations will highlight novel research ideas.

Youth participation during the conference will enrich discussions and debates.

Registration and conference website

More information about registration.

Go to the conference website.